Floppy Mirror Fixes

Besides the old el’ cheapo’s from Pep Boys, Isuzu Trooper mirrors ARE a direct bolt on and are adjustable…..so, they should be the primary mirror to look for in the junk yard.

You can go with break-aways (just make sure to get the inner door brackets and expect some mild problems that are easy to overcome to pop up). Which is what I did.

You can drill the backing plate and use a self tapping screw into the cap holding the mirror in place. Better have a vice, good drill, great/new drill bits and a steady hand.

You can put washers between the plate and the cup.

You can re-tin/re-flatten the pop rivet heads. PIA factor is high, since you’ll have to do it again.

You can hack the brackets up to allow a larger head to fit. I did this originally and I still have the brackets. If you want them. Send me an E-Mail if you want them and pay for shipping and they are yours.

I have heard of some hose clamp idea, but it doesn’t sound like it would be very pretty.

I have also seen some pretty WILD mirrors on them. If I had it to do over again, I would graft on some stock full sized Chevy mirrors on it. Of course, I’d have to build some custom inner door brackets for it. But, I would get it to work.

The first picture is of the finished product. The second one is of the mirror parts apart. The third one is a close-up of the holes. The last one is a picture of the drill bit, and the screws, one of the screws is pointy and the other is rounded off, the one that is pointy is the way I bought the screws, then I rounded the tip off so I didn’t go through or anything. The penny is there for a size reference. The drill bit should be a 1/8″ or a little bit smaller.

Now for the steps on how to complete this:

1) Get 4 pk screws (like the one’s in the last picture)

2) Remove the mirror, this requires a t-15 torx screwdriver (you might want to start with the passenger side to work out any bugs)

3) Drill off the rivet head, use the biggest drill bit that will fit in your hand drill. You might want to start with a smaller bit to help keep the drilling straight, and you will want a bit bigger than ¼”(if you can) because that is how big the hole is in the plate. Only drill until you get to the plate, then stop NOTE: the rivet head isn’t necessarily centered over the hole in the plate, so try to get the drill bit over the hole the best you can.

4) Slowly pry off the plate that the rivet heads were holding on, it works best to grab it with long nose vise grips and rock it until it comes off. If you don’t have this type of pliers, you can use a screwdriver and rock it with that.

5) after you get the plate off, sand down the part of the rivet shaft that the plate was on so it is easier to get back on than it was to get off, also sand down the top of the shaft a little so you have more room to tighten the mirror but leave a bit of the crater left by the big drill bit so you can get the holes for the screws centered easier, you can sand a little more after you drill the holes.

6) Drill holes for the screws in the rivet shafts, you might want to find the correct drill bit size first just to be sure, make sure that the hole is centered fairly well in the shaft.

7) Put the plate back on.

8) Put the screws in, you will either want to use a screwdriver bit in your drill or one of those screwdrivers with a 90 degree bend near the head because you need a lot of torque and the screws need to be really tight.

9) Put mirror back on.

10) Repeat for other mirror

11) Enjoy the $69.80 you saved by fixing the mirrors yourself.

This is long because I was trying to be detailed, if you have any questions about this, I will try to answer them, go ahead and e-mail the question to me. Good luck!

NOTE:there is a difference between the plates that came on some year rangers, the older ones only had the bump in the middle of the plate, the newer ones came with ridges along the sides of the plates so that they would be stronger, these plates are also possibly thicker. Pictures of this are:

Old Above – New Below

Using Ford Aerostar Mirrors

Submitted By Black-N-Tan:

I just wanted to let everybody know about what I did to install black breakaway mirrors from an 88 Ford Aerostar on my 90 Bronco II.

I was tired of the floppy, small – basically wimpy – stock black flag mirrors. At the same time, I knew the standard B2 breakaways would look silly on my “black-n-tan” because they’re chrome. The XLS versions of the B2 had black breakaways, but they’re few and far between. Solution: Aerostar mirrors!

I went to the salvage yard and got two breakaway mirrors and the corresponding inside-the-door braces from an 88 Ford Aerostar for $30. (Not all Aerostars have breakaways, but one in five in the yard I was looking at did).

Two problems, two fixes.

1) Aerostar doors are flatter, whereas on the B2 the door angles in under the window and that’s where the top bracket for the mirror mounts. So I put the top bracket of the mirror mount in a vise, and simply bent it to an angle, then put it up against the B2 to make sure it sat flush. It’s not too hard to leverage. The bottom mount sits flat against the door and isn’t an issue. Then I had to do the same for the inside the door brace: put the top into a vise and bend it to meet the same angle as the mirror. It’s also a good idea to make sure the holes in the mounts match up perfectly with those in the brace. You can bend slightly the angle of the “elbow” of the mirror mount if it’s off.

2) The inside-the-door brace from the Aerostar actually mounts three places: at the top mirror mount bracket, at the bottom one, and then lower down inside the Aerostar door to another brace. Needless to say, the B2 door is different. So I hacksawed that lower portion of the brace off and put duct tape over the rough edge (see pic):

Note: you can’t use an inside-the-door brace from B2 breakaways, the bottom bracket from the Aerostar doesn’t drop down as low. So if you’ve got stock B2 breakaways already, you can’t just swap them out for Aerostar breakaways.

Then it’s just a matter of putting on the mirrors. The top 2 holes line up exactly to the existing ones for the flag mirror. To drill the bottom ones, I used a metal punch and gave it a small whack with a hammer from the INSIDE, through the holes on the brace. Then drill a hole over the tiny dent. And mount the mirror.

One tip: for the bottom holes, since I didn’t want to drill whopping big ones, I made them just big enough for the bolt to go through. That means it was hard to align the bolt perfectly with the nuts that are welded onto the brace (your holes have to be right on). I eventually got them to go in without cross-threading. But to make it very easy, you can take the nuts off the brace, and then they’re easy to thread onto the bolt from inside the door.

To sum up: I’m very happy with the black breakaways. They’re solid. I can fold the mount against the door and it’s solid (in case you’re wondering how the inside-the-door brace does without a third anchor). They look great, make the B2 look more like the truck it is. Above all, they’re safer. I’ve got a nice big view that stays where I want it (unlike the flag mirrors when you realize at the wrong time that you must have bumped them to getting into the vehicle).

If you’ve got any questions, just holler.

Using Hyundai Sonata Mirrors:

Submitted By: hardyn

I was having a heck of a time with the side mirrors on my 1990 ranger, very loose and would blow in at about 80km/h. After fooling around in a wrecking yard, a buddy and I decided to try a pair of power mirrors from an 1989 Hyundai Sonata. To both of our amazement they fit! Almost perfectly. Apparently by fluke the contours at the top of the door are almost identical, the factory Hyundai “shims” fit the Ranger really well.

I also moved the mirror 8″ forward from the original location to the front of the door, where it should be.